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Monkey Sterilization Programme

HP Forest Department receives a number of representations from various channels including farmers, panchayats, e-samadhan, District Grievances Committees, Kisan sangathans etc. that monkeys constantly raid their agricultural crops and cause lot of damage to the same and are posing substantial losses to them besides causing threat to their life at times. They have attained the status of a pest (undeclared) to the agriculture fields and Human habitations, mainly the urban dwellings are occupied by monkeys as a consequence of availability of ample left over human food which is easily accessible from the garbage bins, resulting into increased interaction leading to menace in the form of attacks, damage to crops etc. The farmers are also facing a threat to their livelihood in agricultural landscapes due to damage being caused to their crops.

H.P. is the pioneer state in the country having started an innovative programme of monkey sterilization to control the constantly increasing population of monkeys. To encourage monkey catchers, the state pays an incentive of Rs 500 per monkey trapped. The target of monkey sterilisation for the year 2015-16 is 28800. So, far during the year 11072 no of monkeys have been sterilised upto the end of February 2016. So far since the start of the Sterilisation programme in 2006, 51.4 of macaque populations in the state stood sterilised and the cumulative progress of MSCs of the state is as under.

Year

Monkeys sterilised in numbers

Total number of monkeys

sterilised year wise

Male

Female

2006-07

366

190

556

2007-08

773

672

1445

2008-09

863

1677

2540

2009-10

5179

6445

11624

2010-11

7490

7588

15078

2011-12

11117

9658

20775

2012-13

7733

7080

14813

2013-14

8188

7876

16064

2014-15

6858

6073

12931

2015-16

7065

6478

13543

2016-17

8591

7306

15897

G Total

64223

61043

125266

There are, 8 State of the art Monkey Sterilization Centres (MSCs) namely Tutikandi (Shimla), Sastar (Hamirpur), Gopalpur (Kangra), Boul (Una), Paontasahib (Sirmour), Sarol (Chamba), Salappar (Mandi), Ispur (Una) operational in the State, and another MSC is in offing at Kanianalah near Kotgarh. The cost of establishment of these MSCs was Rs 774.70 lakhs so far. The Department has a veterinary doctor in each MSC on deputation from Animal Husbandry Department. The sterilizations in males are done through thermo-cauteric coagulative vasectomy and in females through endoscopic thermo-cauteric tubectomy.

As a result of the constant efforts put in by the Forest Department of HP, now the numbers of Rhesus macaques have started dwindling.The comparative figures of all 3 macaque estimations is as follows:

Year

2004

2013

2015

Population

317512

226086

207614

The impact of monkey sterilization programme in stabilizing the monkey population is now visible in many pockets of the State. The full impact of sterilization on monkey population shall be discernible in future when sterilization of considerable monkey population shall be achieved at the current pace of sterilization.